Austria has uncovered an international child pornography network involving more than 2,360 suspects from 77 countries, the interior minister said. The suspects paid to view images that showed "the worst kind of child sexual abuse", Guenther Platter said. The videos were posted on a Russian website, hosted by an Austrian company. No arrests have yet been made but Austrian authorities are sharing their information with investigators in other countries including the US and Germany. Austrian federal police said the case was "a strike against child pornography unprecedented in Austrian criminal history". Twenty-three suspects were being questioned, Austrian officials said, and arrest warrants might soon be issued. Fourteen of them have confessed to downloading the material. The youngest person implicated was 17 and the oldest was 69. They included students, government employees and retired people, Mr Platter said.... http://news.bbc.co.uk

Hackers have attempted to topple key parts of the internet's backbone, in one of the most significant attacks of recent years. The target was servers that help to direct global internet traffic. In the early hours of Tuesday three key servers were hit by a barrage of data in what is known as a distributed denial-of-service attack. There is no evidence so far of damage, which experts are saying is testament to the robust nature of the internet. The so-called root servers involved in the attack act as a kind of global address book for the internet by translating website name information into IP addresses to enable computers to visit particular sites. The servers involved were each operated by a separate body - the US Defense Department, the net's oversight body ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and UltraDNS, which manages traffic for websites ending in "org" and some other suffixes....http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6338261.stm

Some 500 aircraft companies from around the world have flocked to an air show in southern India hoping to cash in on the country's booming aviation sector. The five-day event at the Yelahanka air base in Bangalore will showcase a range of new civilian and military aircraft. India plans to buy 126 fighter jets for its air force to replace its fleet of ageing Soviet-era MiG-21s. Industry estimates suggest India will need more than 1,000 planes over the next two decades as air travel booms. Air traffic in India could double by 2010 to 50 million passenger journeys a year on the back of a growing economy, according to one estimate. Some 45 foreign delegations and 35 air force chiefs from various countries are attending the five-day air show...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6337391.stm

Blowing snow and intense cold blamed for 11 deaths across the country kept schools closed Wednesday across much of West Virginia, where temperatures have been at their lowest in more than a decade. The arctic weather disrupted flights from Chicago to the Northeast on Tuesday, shut down some Amtrak service and caused huge chain-reaction traffic accidents. Schools also have been closed in places from Minnesota to upstate New York. There was some relief Wednesday in the Great Lakes region. Chicago woke up to temperatures around zero with a wind chill of 14 below zero -- an improvement over its minus-30 wind chill on Monday. The area was expected to rebound into the low 20s by the end of the week, National Weather Service meteorologist Tim Seeley said Tuesday. The cold air returned to the northern Plains, where Hallock, Minnesota, had a temperature of 27 below zero early Wednesday, the weather service reported....http://www.cnn.com/2007/WEATHER/02/07/cold.weather.ap/index.html?eref=rss_us

Iraq's government has identified hundreds of polluted sites that pose huge health hazards, but insecurity and lack of funds are stifling attempts to make them safe, a minister said on Wednesday.With violence gripping the country, campaigners are struggling to draw attention to environmental damage caused by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the 1991 Gulf War and waste discharges by industry struggling during years of sanctions. "We have identified more than 350 priority polluted areas, which include amounts of hazardous chemicals and depleted uranium," Environment Minister Nermeen Othman said on the sidelines of a major U.N. environment conference in Kenya. ...http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2856361

Venezuela's foreign minister dismissed the U.S. government's decision to cut counter-drug aid to the South American nation, saying his country does not need money from "the devil." "Venezuela is a sovereign country. [U.S. officials] can take their resources and do whatever they think they need to do," Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro told reporters Tuesday. "We will continue fighting against drug trafficking." U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said Monday that U.S. President George W. Bush's proposed 2007-2008 budget eliminated $2.2 million in counter-drug aid originally requested for Venezuela. President Hugo Chavez, who often refers to Bush as "the devil," broke off cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in August 2005 accusing its agents of espionage, and has yet to come up with a new agreement governing DEA agents' work in the country....http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,250682,00.html